Bloomberg

The only surprise should be that anyone is surprised. Those who are used to how frequently the word "unexpectedly" appears in reports about disappointing economic data certainly won't be at all shocked at a Friday Bloomberg News report by Steve Matthews and A. Catarina Saraiva telling readers that "U.S. economic data have been falling short of prognosticators' expectations by the most in six…

The business press's ability to keep up the appearances of "recovery is just around the corner" for over 5-1/2 years has been simultaneously amazing and disgusting. One of their strategies has been to define a "new normal" which is only presented that way because everyone knows deep-down that as long as the left controls economic policy, the nation's economy won't ever really get any better than…

Less than five hours after its release, the government's news that retail sales fell by 0.6 percent in February — compared to a 0.3 percent increase expected by economists and analysts — is buried way down (about 6-8 screens, depending on your computer) on the home page of Bloomberg News, where the focus is supposed to be on developments in business and the economy. Instead, the web site's main…

Which was the bigger insult to Hillary: that she might have committed hanky-panky with the handling of her email, or that she's a huge Barry Manilow fan? On today's With All Due Respect, Mark Halperin mocked Hillary's decision to delete thousands of supposedly personal emails: "was she running out of server space because she was, like, downloading every Barry Manilow song?" John Heilemann was…

Discussing the growing email controversy swirling around Hillary Clinton with Bloomberg Politics managing editor Mark Halperin on Thursday’s NBC Today, co-host Savannah Guthrie suggested it could resurrect another scandal for the would-be 2016 contender: “What about Republicans? This certainly hands them a lot of ammunition and breathes new life, perhaps, into the whole investigation into…

On the Bloomberg TV show he co-hosts, John Heilemann—asked today to quantify on a scale of "1-to-Godzilla" how "dumb" politically it was of Hillary Clinton to use personal email—answered "Godzilla with Mothra riding on his back dumb."  Heilemann also revealed having reached out to former Hillary aides and that "to a person" they responded that the situation is a political "disaster." Mark…

When on his Bloomberg TV show today it came John Heilemann's turn to comment on a clip of Hillary from a speech to a women's conference in Silicon Valley yesterday, I sincerely thought he was going to criticize Clinton's canned delivery. But to my amazement, Heilemann hailed Hillary as "much looser, much more spontaneous, much funnier" than she's been in the past.  Talk about the soft bigotry of…

The Bloomberg headline was shocking: “Grisly Language Propels Kansas Anti-Abortion Bill as U.S. Model.” Bloomberg journalist Esme E. Deprez was tasked with informing readers about the Unborn Child Protection from Dismemberment Act, which last month was introduced in both Kansas and Oklahoma. The writing experience obviously wasn’t pleasant for her.

Speaking at Drake University in Iowa on Thursday, Vice President Joe Biden was running through a list of dignitaries that were there for his remarks and referred to former Iowa Democratic Representative Neal Smith as his “old butt buddy” and told Smith that “I miss you man.” On Thursday night, the major networks ignored the story and didn’t even one of its lighthearted news briefs to it (as the…

Mike Huckabee, the once and future presidential candidate, is somehow controversial for attacking Beyonce and her gangsta-rap husband Jay-Z in his new book God, Guns, Grits, and Gravy. Beyonce is one of the most popular singers in America, and Huckabee acknowledges that. But pollsters are distorting his book. Conservative politicians aren’t really allowed to condemn the crudest excesses of…

The Seattle Seahawks yesterday - in a moment of profound foolishness - forsook Beast Mode for Least Mode.  And it cost them the Super Bowl.   But they can take ever so slight solace - the Media has been in Least Mode for decades.  This has been on prominent display throughout the Barack Obama Administration - and certainly when it comes to the Administration’s many, MANY unilateral power grabs…

If someone fools you once, shame on them. If they fool you with the same trick a second time, shame on you. If they "fool" you a third time — well, you must be in on it. That's my take on Bloomberg News's virtually euphoric reaction to yesterday's new-home sales release from the Census Bureau. The wire service's Shobhana Chandra celebrated how seasonally adjusted December sales were at "the…

Filling in for John Heilemann on the Monday edition of Bloomberg’s With All Due Respect, Campbell Brown took a shot at House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell for “whining about President Obama” in an interview that aired Sunday on CBS’s 60 Minutes. Following a clip from the interview, Brown first credited Boehner for “holding a very diverse, you know, House…

Appearing on PBS's Charlie Rose Tuesday night following President Obama's State of the Union address, Bloomberg View columnist Al Hunt praised it as "one of the best speeches of his presidency" and "remarkably effective," before admitting: "I don't think he's going to get much done....This is not a cycle where you get much done. He may get a little stuff on trade and infrastructure."